Gbr Livery Now Real Not No Longer Fictional

It seems some believe all one has to do is stick a flag on a train and be nostalgic for a golden age of British Rail that never existed.

 

There was a golden age. Sectorisation. By the early 90s a number of electrifications finished, more planned, fleets of new trains planned to replace the last of the slamdoors, reliability climbing, customer satisfaction improving.

Then everything went in the bin so it could be chopped-up and sold to the highest bidder. Trains handed to the ROSCOs for nothing. Track and signal safety compromised for profit.

I'm not saying privatisation is bad, just the way it was done. Likewise nationalisation won't solve many current issues if it's done badly.

 

But it will bring back the infamous BR sandwich.............only this time it will be "Great"

 

Don't worry, there are plenty of us who have that covered.

 

But even with Sectorisation there were faults. Yeah it was great if you lived in the south East. But elsewhere, Locomotive hauled trains were replaced by cheap two coach units. Services slashed, track rationalisation occured meaning large chunks of the Rail Network that could easily handle traffic suddenly had large sections of Single track or double track where before it had 3 or four track sections.

Liverpool to Newcastle services which were hauled by a loco and 6 or seven carriages were replaced by a two coach 150.

Devon and Cornwall replaced it's aging First generation DMU fleet with 142s which were so unsuitable they had to be replaced again with first generation units. The 155s had to be converted at great cost to single carriage 153s after numerous faults were found. The 158 was delayed due to faults and issues.

Sectorisation wasn't a golden age for many passengers outside of the South East.

 

People really getting het up over the Union Jack. Jeez

 

I think there's been a good discussion here, thank you to those who answered my curiosity on Sunday. It seems to me like the issue with "flag waving" is mostly because of those who use it for hate and the like. Many US trains have the flag as part of the livery (albeit a lot smaller and neater), I know in Morocco the flag and it's colours are also used somewhat often. For me I think I'll see it from the lens of the flag's there as it aligns with the name. If there is more to it, then so be it but I don't align myself with it, especially as for the vast majority it's just speculation. I said in my early access stream & video, with regards to the livery, that I think it would be better if it wasn't repeating on every coach, but the main flag portions were only on the cab ends, which is an opinion apparently shared by quite a few.

Born and lived in the UK my entire life, London specifically, but both my parents are Moroccan.

 

This was the most upvoted modded livery when it came up on r/uktrains .

To quote the great Mark Brendanawicz:

I'm not saying this is any good.
I'm saying that this'll win.
It's mass appeal. It's like what motels put up, and it hangs there for years, and no one ever throws acid at it.

 

It’s certainly a big improvement. I’m not sure the red line along the top really works because that’s where you put a coloured stripe to indicate First Class (yellow) or (in the good old days) red for a buffet car. However, in terms of overall appearance, while it’s not great, I do think I could refrain from throwing acid at it.

 

Personally swap the red stripe for white and maybe add a red and white stripe at waist height and it'd look quite good imo

 

After many hours of work, I’ve come up with this. All rights reserved.

 

Even the 1970s.... THE 1970s....had a less gaudy version of the livery. (Not my photo.)

 

Was pleased I got a ride of that when I went to London in April.

 

While I’m generally of the opinion that any livery can look good on a class 47, I think this may be the exception which proves the rule.

 

Oh dear. Don't upset our Liz. (After all the CL47's were repainted for her Silver Jubilee).
Especially not now when she can come back and haunt you

 

Speaking generally, while I don't care for this particular livery, the Union Jack is a striking - well, logo, if you will, and has worked very well as e.g. British Airways' tail flash. SBB and Swissair both use their national flag, so did Alitalia while it was around, Air France uses a variation of the Tricoleur, so I don't have a problem with it in principle. Just a problem with ugly.

 

Had the SWR 701 pull up for my commute into London the other day.. looks pretty smart… seen it out and about a few times in the flesh and it’s definitely striking, plus I think the 701 wears it well

Also saw the 875 yesterday, paired to a GEX liveried second unit… also looked pretty good, but not a fan of the mix and match liveries

Definitely becomes accustomed to the design, but it feels more like a special livery… still not sure I’m ready for a total fleet takeover, especially as I think the current SWR livery looks particularly good

 

Why they so not apply the colours to the nose as well, get rid of the ugly yellow

 

Only trains with a certain headlight intensity (generally the most modern trains) are permitted not to have yellow fronts. Even then, there has been discontent amongst some Permanent Way workers about the loss of yellow fronts, as many feel a brighter headlight does not fully compensate, in terms of visibility. As a result, some operators who operate trains which have a headlight which meets the standard, still choose to have a yellow front for the benefit of Permanent Way workers.

 

For me, an aircraft having a flag on it feels natural, because they operate internationally. The same for a ship.

Covering things which only operate in their home country in the flag seems to indicate a certain lack of self-assuredness.

Yes, we know you're a British train. In fact, I think we kind of knew that before you got the flag livery. We're in Britain.

Mind you, not many of them are British trains really. Perhaps we should paint every train in the flag of the country in which it was built. That would be fun.

 

That does make any sense, what does Permanent Way worker care about yellow nose

 

It’s so they can see the train clearly when they are working on the line. The yellow front makes the train more visible from afar.

 

Do the former TOC's have a say in how the GBR wrap is done or is it more of a "use this one" kind of deal - some look way more tastefull than others, admittedly a personal feeling but still.

It would have been cool, in my opinion at least, to have a GBR pack of sorts. include an 80X, the 710 dressed up as the GBR 701, the GWE or GX 387 as a GBR 387.. you could have even done something with a BR era loco and a new GBR train and made a "railways heritage pack" for a now and then kinda vibe.... dunno..

 

Why would they be working on the line, if the line is active

and again they could paint the front red instead, much more visible

 

just a guess but i suspect theyd be doing some kind of maintenance of way?
sometimes it might be more feesable to shut one line down on a multi line section of track to keep some self loading freight on the go? just a guess though as it seems odd to me to shut down the entire track section any time anything needed to be done

 

That is it , you shut the track te workers work on, so the fact the nose of the train is anything but yellow, as no baring on them, you just move the train to another track

 

even on another track, with no workers on the specific track, im sure the fact the corridor is still in use and there might be train on the line right next to you means being able to see them helps.

Lets also not forget its not just MOW workers, yellow is more visible to pedestrians and vehicles at grade level crossings as well. even if someone manages to tresspass the line, having a super visible colour on the fron of the train is helpful.

I think there is more to it than just being seen though, im honestly not too sure why its done. ive always just assumed the above as it makes sense to me at least

 

I saw this beauty a couple of years ago and got excited that it was the actual GBR livery. I don't even like blue or grey but this absolutely hits it.

 

The red kinda ruins it for me :-(

 

Back then we already knew the brief was that it would feature red, white and blue, so there was always going to be some red.
The way it's done here would look better than the chaotic mess we ended up with.

 

Now THAT is an eye-catching livery! Maybe it just triggers nostalgia for BR Blue, but to my eyes it’s excellent. Shame we won’t see it until somebody in a few years decides the current GBR brand needs a refresh…

 

The thing that kinda ruins it tho is the red looks like an afterthought, personally i would have probably gone with red piping round the grey, otherwise it's a good base to work from, we have the blue/grey old livery, the old large logo tie in, if you added the red as piping or a stripe that could count as a nod to the swallow livery.

 

Good point, that would look pretty epic too!

 

No member of maintenance staff should be relying on yellow fronts to spot a train and move out of its way. Any line staff are working on should be blocked, and a warden should be appointed if working adjacent to an open line.

 

a wise man once said accidents happen, having a fall back is never a failure.